Bengaluru propping up “eco-fashion”

There’s a lot going on when it comes to being “eco-friendly” and climate conscious. People are thinking about the deteriorating climate, but they are not thinking about it too. See Delhi. See India. See pretty much the entire world. Minus a handful of exceptions, almost every city on this planet looking for a clean breather but has failed to do so. However, Bengaluru has made a very off-beat yet conscious effort for sustainability with a farm-to-fashion movement by launching a eco friendly eco-fashion line called “Aavaran”.

This happened as a Rajasthan based fashion label – ‘Aavaran’ chose Bengaluru as the city to open up their first boutique space beyond Rajasthan to promote their collections. The eco-friendly fashion label “Aavaran” works with rural communities of southern Rajasthan, and is focused on promoting heritage craft like handblock printing, dabu, or a special clothing line called Ayurvastra (clothes made keeping Ayurveda at its core) with consists of clothes treated with turmeric, alum, manjistha and other such healing herbs.

Talking about why Benguluru was chosen as their inception ground, the founder of Aavaran, Alka Sharma said, “Bengalureans have respect for craft. They are open to learning new life skills. Educating them about healing properties of naturally-dyed garments and ethically grown fabrics like khadi, mulberry silk and organic cotton is easier than label-conscious metros of India”. Moreover, this trend of eco-friendly fashion has sought the attention of Bengalureans since past 1 or 2 years and it is unimaginable that how fast the eco-fashion industry is growing and how people are finding new alternatives to make better use of it.

With its love for eco-fashion, Bengaluru has become the first city in India to promote and practice zero-waste design philosophy, hand-loom, natural dyes extracted from plants and organic fabrics. The city is a ground for not just one but many dedicated boutiques and handling numerous promotional events in which, they try to circulate the idea of eco-fashion and get newer ideas for it. Rosemary Jacob, one such curator has been hosting pop-ups for featuring products like scrap-metal jewelry and handwoven reversible dresses.

All the city based eco-friendly designers are finding the start-up culture blooming immensely in Bengaluru and this startup movement has given encouragement to new business ventures in fashion industry. However, sustainable fashion is very labor intensive, and hence it is difficult to make it pocket friendly all the time, but Bengaluru embraces that and has become a supporting ground for startups, they’re stocking more and more such labels into the stores.